Thursday, December 20, 2012

The gun-grabbing debate misses the point, I believe.

When it comes to schools being targets, I believe most are missing the point.

The issue is the difference between a "soft" target and a "hard" target.

"Soft" targets are locations where it's difficult to impossible to
fight back on the attackers terms.... i.e., return fire. "Hard" targets
are those with a high likelihood of responding in kind.

The problem, then, isn't "guarding" schools. I honestly
don't believe that is necessary and the expense would be outrageous to
hire effective deterrent-qualified individuals to perform that function.

The problem is that every whack job out there knows schools to be soft targets.

Why this is important is simple: does anyone here recall the last time a hard target was attacked with a resulting massacre?

The solution to the "soft" target classification is simple: turn "soft"
targets into "hard" targets. In schools, that solution means arming
the teachers.

Leftists typically recoil in horror at the thought
of it. But, as we know, when there are so many OTHER soft targets out
there to hit, why would your run-of-the-mill whack job try and take on a
hard target?

I say: arm the teachers. I say, add the
requirement as a part of their curriculum. I say run the background
checks, set up the policies, and arm them.

Gun control as the
gun grabbers are preaching it now won't stop any additional slaughter:
the only thing an assault weapons ban would do is ban the law-abiding
from owning such weapons. The types who would use them to slaughter
really don't care all that much about following the law. This, then, is
the classic case of confusing motion... with action.Do we, as all the leadership and management training and experience I was engaged in during all those years in the military, allow this situation to control us?

Or do we control the situation?

Panicked responses from the ignorant, inexperienced, ostrich-head-in-the-sand set is just that: allowing the situation to control us.

Chances
are that, were a plan to arm them ever realized, teachers would rarely be called upon to ever use those
weapons... but the deterrent value alone would save lives.

8 comments:

While the concept of a "gun free zone" - meaning only people who ignore policy will have guns - is bizarre, being an armed killer is definitely NOT part of an educator's responsibility. If Bob who teachs the 3rd grade is a licensed marksman and has a key to the gun safe in the principal's office, I'm okay with that.

That it isn't now "part" of the description does not mean it doesn't need to be.

And, presuming the young lady who was slaughtered by that slimeball had a "key to the gun safe" would it have helped?

Your kid is in that classroom, Martin. Do you want the outcome they had?

Or do you want at least a chance that woman could have defended those children... and maybe kept that clown from slaughtering everybody?

And the issue here is deterrence. If the teachers were armed, is it MORE likely or LESS likely this nutjob would have attacked a school?

I'm all about the solution to the problem. You do not offer one. I do. It's really that simple, and until something better comes along, that's what I am going to urge my legislators to do.

Because under your scenario, everyone in Bob's 3rd grade class is now dead, killed because Bob was the first unarmed individual shot in the classroom while he was fumbling for a gun safe key that he wouldn't live to get out of the classroom to open.

And in the Brave New World, if a teacher cannot shoot... cannot learn to defend his or her children... then they need to be doing something else for a living.

And believe me, they'll learn.

BTW... I'm not an "armed killer."

I am armed, and I would kill to defend others. But cute little labels are a part of the problem.

Dude, thank goodness we live in a democracy. If the majority of Americans want to force teachers to be armed killers then that's what we'll do. I, personally, won't vote for that, so by your logic my grandkids deserve to die in preschool so that you can own a gun. So be it. I'll use my vote to take your gun from your cold dead fingers. (I won't personally do it - the military will.) Nothing personal, that's what I'll urge my legistators to do.

Uh, no... by my logic, those kids in Connecticut would still be alive.

My right to own a gun is guaranteed by that pesky 2nd Amendment.

But the schools are responsible for the safety of our children, and this school district failed in that task.

My way, and they'd still be alive.

Your way, and the outcome would be the same.

It's really quite simple, actually... so, by all means, press the legislators to keep the same system.

That way, you can tell yourself you did your part the next time we have a room full of children slaughtered.

But you don't mind awfully if I press for the approach that would have saved the lives of these children?

Because, Martin, I STILL don't see what you would have done, or demanded, or changed... that would have kept a single drop of blood from flowing.

Sometimes, reality can be ugly. And an unarmed group of teachers and administrators who are tasked with protecting our children when we place their lives into those hands... facing someone like this monster is, perhaps, the second ugliest thing of all.

I agree that guns did not cause 28 people to die anymore than cars cause people to die. My problem is with your insistence that school teachers should be FORCED to use guns. And the NRA's solution of having police at every school is so far beyond ridiculous that I can only explain it with OWG illogic!?

The NRA needed to keep silent or support a toothless/for-show-only "assault weapon" ban like we used to have (that did nothing but meant a lot.)

As for the 2nd Amendment, dude, the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) when down, and so will the 2nd if another half dozen pre-schools turn into Kill Zones, (logical or not).

Kind of like a WEA union card, if you want to work as a teacher (in public education) you have to have one of these (or other requisite teacher unions like the AFT for example.) Just make it mandatory as a union card... -- Jeremy

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